Airline Consortium to Deploy Unisys System to Improve Baggage Handling at Australian Airports

Nearly 40 international airlines operating to and from Australia have signed a two-year contract extension through 2016 with Unisys Australia to continue providing an advanced baggage reconciliation system at seven Australian international airports at Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, Cairns, Perth, Adelaide and the Gold Coast.

According to the companies, the contract extension is worth more than AU$11million (approximately US$11.7million).

The Board of Airline Representatives Australia (BARA), an industry representative organization for airlines, manages the engagement with Unisys on behalf of the 38 airlines. Unisys has worked with BARA since 2004 to provide the baggage reconciliation system that links passengers with their bags, tracking both as they move through the system.

Each year these airlines must secure and validate up to 17.5 million bags for approximately 10 million air travelers on international flights to and from Australia.(1)

The Unisys baggage reconciliation system helps airlines comply with the Aviation Security Act's "Triple A" (account and authorize) regulations relating to baggage handling, which is mandated by the Commonwealth Government's Office of Transport Security.

When passengers check in, each bag receives a barcode, which is then scanned and reconciled with a passenger record before it can be loaded onto the aircraft. As the airline has a record of the baggage loading order, bags can be identified and recovered if passengers fail to board. This process is designed to prevent take-off with a mismatch of passengers, crew and baggage and enhance security levels by avoiding unaccompanied baggage being loaded on the flight.

"The global economy and the competitive nature of the airline industry means that airlines seek business efficiencies and yet must concurrently protect, or improve, their customers' travel experience as well as meet the mandatory security requirements which apply to air carriers," said Sury Chavali, Partner for the Asia Pacific Airports Practice, Unisys. "The Unisys baggage reconciliation system helps achieve such efficiencies by avoiding lengthy processing or flight delays when baggage needs to be found and removed from flights."

The Unisys baggage reconciliation system team provides a full managed service to the BARA member airlines. This service includes managing the network infrastructure and security architecture; training and onsite support; application management; and round-the-clock help desk support.

The BARA extension builds on Unisys credentials for delivering baggage reconciliation systems for the Asia Pacific aviation industry. In 2010 Qantas selected Unisys to provide a solution for its Australian domestic flights using Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) technology to track and verify bags. Qantas introduced Australia's first self-service baggage check-in facility, part of the airline's Next Generation Check-in initiative to streamline and speed up a passenger's journey through domestic airports, using technology such as RFID bag tags called Q Bag Tags.

((Comments on this story may be sent to [email protected]))